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the people of the early Mesolithic. Oak and lime trees with trunks twice
as wide as the length of my bicycle rose perhaps 100 feet without
branching. Where they had fallen they formed an unscalable barrier,
which dammed the spongy ground, creating small pools. The forest
floor was a maze of dead wood. Between the toppled trunks it frothed
with ramsons, celandines, spring peas and may lilies. I disturbed boar
with their piglets, red squirrels, hazel grouse, a huge bird that might
have been an eagle owl, a black woodpecker. Hiding in the reeds beside
a river that ran through the forest, waiting in vain for the beavers which
had felled the birch trees with cartoon precision, I saw a great snipe fly
overhead. Along the streams on the edge of the forest at night, every
bush appeared to contain a nightingale. Black storks scoured the mead-
ows, among a hubbub of frogs and corncrakes.
I saw the bison only twice. On the first occasion I walked around a
curve in the path and met an animal which looked more like a Chris-
tian depiction of the Devil than any other creature I have seen. We both
stopped. I was close enough to see the mucus in her tear ducts. She had
small, hooked black horns which gleamed slightly in the soft light of the
forest, heavy brows and eyes so dark that I could not distinguish the
irises from the pupils. She wore a neat brown beard and an oddly
human fringe between her horns. Her back rose to a crest then tapered
away to a narrow rump, from which a black tail, slim as a whip, now
twitched. She flared her nostrils and raised her chin. I fancied I could
smell her sweet, beery breath. We watched each other for several min-
utes. I stayed so still that I could feel the blood pounding in my neck.
Eventually she tossed her head, danced a couple of steps then turned,
trotted back down the path and cantered away through the trees.
On the second occasion, I had hidden among some bushes
overlooking a pond I had found deep in the forest, which was sur-
rounded by spoor. I had waited for no more than an hour when I was
struck by the impression that the trees were moving. I blinked and
looked again: a large herd of wisent had materialized beside the water.
It was hard to believe that animals of this size could have arrived so
quietly. The cows drank while their fluffy calves stood beside them,
their front legs in the water. The great slab-sided bulls burnt ginger
in the spotlight of the pond's clearing. Now I could hear them snuffling
the water, occasionally snorting and softly groaning. After perhaps
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